Tuberculosis kills 1.5 million people across the world every year. The existing treatment is effective but long. Many patients abandon it before completion, increasing the risk of a relapse and favouring the emergence of drug resistance in the bacillus responsible. Cutting down the duration of treatment is the priority for researchers. A team from IRD and a number of other international institutions has just published the results of a 10-year long clinical trial carried out in five African countries and involving a shorter regimen, in the New England Journal of Medicine. However, this regimen has proven to be less effective than the standard treatment. Scientists are now pursuing their research into alternative medicinal therapies, drawing on the vast network of skills developed during this clinical trial, the first of its kind for over thirty years.